Music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight talked to an investigator in 2024 and shared his thoughts about the night of the shooting that killed rapper Tupac Shakur, a source familiar with the interview told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.
Knight has long refused to say what happened the night that Shakur was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip. At the time, Shakur was a passenger in a black BMW driven by Death Row Records CEO Knight, who was grazed in the head by a bullet.
As a long-awaited trial over the slaying comes to a close, this is the first time that details of his interview with law enforcement have been reported publicly.
Knight said defendant Duane Davis was involved in Shakur’s death, but also refused to reveal who fired shots, said he thought multiple people were shooting and that he thought Frank Alexander, who provided security for Shakur, may have played a role, though not as one of the shooters, according to the source. Multiple reports say Alexander died in 2013.
The music executive indicated that he believed Sean “Diddy” Combs wanted him and Shakur killed, the source said.
The trial has featured similar allegations about Combs, who was convicted of prostitution-related offenses in New York last year and received a sentence of over four years in federal prison.
“Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs supposedly had given money to Zip Martin to give to Mr. Davis for payment of the Tupac murder,” former Los Angeles Police Department Detective Daryn Dupree testified.
Combs’ company has not responded to requests for comment about the allegations during the trial.
Davis, 63, is the only person ever prosecuted in connection with the slaying of Shakur, who died Sept. 13, 1996, days after the shooting near the Strip.
The California prison system’s email service would not allow a reporter to message Knight, a former UNLV football player who is serving a 28-year prison sentence for running over and killing a man in 2015. Attorney David Chesnoff, who has represented Knight, declined to comment, citing attorney-client privilege, and said he does not represent Knight in relation to the trial.
Prosecutors have said Davis was the “shot-caller” who came up with the plan to exact revenge on the rapper and Knight in retaliation for an attack by Shakur and his entourage against Davis’ nephew, Orlando Anderson, earlier that night at the MGM Grand.
Davis is accused of being a leader in the South Side Compton Crips during the 1990s.
According to prosecutors, the Bloods-associated Mob Piru gang had ties to Death Row Records and the South Side Crips were associated with Bad Boy Records, a label owned by Combs.
Knight said he knew Davis since they played football together when they were children, the source said. He described talking to Davis after the shooting, saying that Davis was crying and worried about the possibility Knight could beat him up, according to the source.
Knight also provided an alternative theory for the fight at the MGM, saying it was over their concerns that there was a contract to kill him and Shakur after a man in his entourage said Orlando Anderson was a lookout for the people who wanted to kill Shakur, according to the source.
During the trial, Reggie Wright Jr., a former Compton police officer who also provided security for Death Row Records, testified that at the time of the MGM fight, Knight was on probation and was then accused of violating his probation by assaulting Anderson.
Wright said he was present for a meeting where attorneys discussed a deal. Anderson would receive a settlement of about $60,000 from Death Row for the assault, he said.
Then, at the probation violation hearing, Anderson testified that Knight was trying to stop the fight and was not participating, Wright recalled. A judge was not convinced and sent Knight to prison anyway, he said.
Knight denied that he paid off Anderson, the source said.
Davis defense attorney Michael Sanft spoke about Knight’s interview to reporters Wednesday.
“He’s declined interviews with me,” he said. “He did have an interview with the state” and talked for two-and-a-half hours.
He said Knight spoke with Cliff Mogg, a now-retired Metropolitan Police Department detective, but described the interview as “nothing that came out during the course of the trial because it’s nothing that the state would want to say, to show.”
In a recent interview with ABC News, Knight said he would not cooperate with law enforcement and threatened that he would hurt whichever side brought him to the ongoing trial.
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com.
